The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories Part 15

"And now," said the Widow Monk, seating herself on the other side of the fire-place, "I shall speak as plainly to you as you spoke to me.

You spoke very well yesterday, and I have been thinking about it ever since, and have made up my mind. You are alone in the world, and I am alone; and if you don't wish to be alone any longer, why, I don't wish to be either, and so--perhaps--it will not be necessary to skip Christmas this year."

Alas for the poor baker! Here was paradise seen through a barred gate!

But the baker's heart was moved; even in the midst of his misery he could not but be grateful for the widow's words. There flashed into his eyes a sudden brightness. He held out his hands. He would thank her first, and tell her afterwards.

The widow took his hands, lowered her bright eyes and blushed. Then she suddenly withdrew herself and stood up.

"Now," she said, with a pretty smile, "let me do the talking. Don't look so downcast. When I tell you that you have made me very, very happy, you should look happy too. When you came to me yesterday, and said what you said, I thought you were in too much of a hurry; but now I think that perhaps you were right, and that when people of our age have anything important to do it is well to do it at once; for in this world there are all sorts of things continually springing up to prevent people from being happy."

The whole body of the baker was filled with a great groan, but he denied it utterance. He must hear what she would say.

"And so I was going to suggest," she continued, "that instead of skipping Christmas together, we keep it together. That is all the change I propose to your plan."

Up sprang the baker, so suddenly, that he overset his chair. Now he must speak. The widow stepped quickly toward the door, and, turning with a smile, held up her hand.

"Now, good friend," said she, "stop there! At any moment some one might come in. Hasten back to your shop. At three o'clock I will meet you at the parson's. That will surely be soon enough, even for such a hasty man as you."

The baker came forward, and gasped, "Your husband!"

"Not yet," said the widow, with a laugh, and, kissing the tips of her fingers to him, she closed the door behind her.

Out into the cold went the baker. His head was dazed, but he walked steadfastly to his shop. There was no need for him to go anywhere; to tell anybody anything. The man with the earrings would settle matters for himself soon enough.

The baker put up his shutters and locked his shop door. He would do nothing more for the good of trade; nothing more for the good of anything. Skip Christmas! Indeed would he! And, moreover, every holiday and every happy day would now be skipped straight on for the rest of his life. He put his house in order; he arranged his affairs; he attired himself in his best apparel; locked his door behind him; and went out into the cold world.

He longed now to get far away from the village. Before the sun set there would not be one soul there who would care for him.

As he hurried on, he saw before him the parson's house.

"I will take but one thing away with me," he said; "I will ask the good old man to give me his blessing. That will I take with me."

"Of course he is in," said the parson's maid; "there, in the parlor."

As the baker entered the parson's parlor, some one hastened to meet him. It was the Widow Monk.

"You wicked man," she whispered, "you are a quarter of an hour late.

The parson is waiting."

The parson was a little man with white hair. He stepped toward the couple standing together, and the widow took the baker's hand. Then the parson began the little speech he always made on such occasions. It was full of good sense and very touching, and the widow's eyes were dim with tears. The baker would have spoken, but he had never interrupted a clergyman, and he could not do it now.

Then the parson began his appointed work, and the heart of the baker swelled, as the widow's hand trembled in his own.

"Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife?" asked the parson.

"Now for this," quoth the poor baker to himself, "I may bake forever, but I cannot draw back nor keep the good man waiting." And he said, "Yes."

Then it was that the baker received what he had come for,--the parson's blessing; and, immediately, his fair companion, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears, threw herself into his arms.

"Now," said the baker to himself, "when I leave this house, may the devil take me, and right welcome shall he be!"

"Dearest," she exclaimed, as she looked into his face, "you cannot know how happy I am. My wedding day, and my brother back from the cruel seas!"

Struck by a sudden blast of bewildering ecstasy, the baker raised his eyes, and beheld the tall form of the sun-browned stranger who had been standing behind them.

"You are not a sailor-man," quoth the jovial brother, "like my old mate, who went down in the brig _Mistletoe_, but my sister tells me you are a jolly good fellow, and I wish you fair winds and paying cargoes."

And after giving the baker a powerful handshake, the sailor kissed the bride, the parson's wife, the parson's daughter, and the parson's maid, and wished the family were larger, having just returned from the cruel seas.

The only people in the village of Barnbury, who thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas of that year, were the baker, his wife, and the sailor brother. And a rare good time they had; for a big sea-chest arrived, and there were curious presents, and a tall flask of rare old wine, and plenty of time for three merry people to cook for themselves.

The baker told his wife of his soul-harrowing plight of the day before.

"Now, then," said he, "don't you think that by rights I should bake all the same?"

"Oh, that will be skipped," she said, with a laugh; "and now go you and make ready for the cakes, pastry, and sweetmeats, the baked meats and the poultry, with which the people of Barnbury are to be made right happy on New Year's day."

THE WATER-DEVIL

A MARINE TALE.

In the village of Riprock there was neither tavern nor inn, for it was but a small place through which few travellers pa.s.sed; but it could not be said to be without a place of entertainment, for if by chance a stranger--or two or three of them, for that matter--wished to stop at Riprock for a meal, or to pa.s.s the night, there was the house of blacksmith Fryker, which was understood to be always open to decent travellers.

The blacksmith was a prominent man in the village, and his house was a large one, with several spare bedrooms, and it was said by those who had had an opportunity of judging, that n.o.body in the village lived better than blacksmith Fryker and his family.

Into the village there came, late one autumn afternoon, a tall man, who was travelling on foot, with a small valise hanging from his shoulder.

He had inquired for lodging for the night, had been directed to the blacksmith's house, had arranged to stop there, had had his supper, which greatly satisfied him, and was now sitting before the fire in the large livingroom, smoking blacksmith Fryker's biggest pipe.

This stranger was a red-haired man, with a cheery expression, and a pair of quick, bright eyes. He was slenderly but strongly built, and was a good fellow, who would stand by, with his hands in the pockets of his short pea-jacket, and right willingly tell one who was doing something how the thing ought to be done.

But the traveller did not sit alone before the crackling fire of logs, for the night being cool, a table was drawn near to one side of the fire-place, and by this sat Mistress Fryker and her daughter Joanna, both engaged in some sort of needle-work. The blacksmith sat between the corner of the fire-place and this table, so that when he had finished smoking his after-supper pipe, he might put on his spectacles and read the weekly paper by the light of the big lamp. On the other side of the stranger, whose chair was in front of the middle of the fire-place, sat the school-master, Andrew Cardly by name; a middle-aged man of sober and attentive aspect, and very glad when chance threw in his way a book he had not read, or a stranger who could reinforce his stock of information. At the other corner of the fire-place, in a cus.h.i.+oned chair, which was always given to him when he dropped in to spend an evening with the blacksmith, sat Mr. Harberry, an elderly man, a man of substance, and a man in whom all Riprock, not excluding himself, placed unqualified confidence as to his veracity, his financial soundness, and his deep insight into the causes, the influences, and the final issue of events and conditions.

"On a night like this," said the stranger, stretching his long legs toward the blaze, "there is nothing I like better than a fire of wood, except indeed it be the society of ladies who do not object to a little tobacco smoke," and he glanced with a smile toward the table with a lamp upon it.

Now blacksmith Fryker was a prudent man, and he did not consider that the privileges of his hearthstone--always freely granted to a decent stranger--included an acquaintance with his pretty daughter; and so, without allowing his women-folk a chance to enter into the conversation, he offered the stranger a different subject to hammer upon.

"In the lower country," said he, "they don't need fires as early in the season as we do. What calling do you follow, sir? Some kind of trade, perhaps?"

"No," said the traveller, "I follow no trade; I follow the sea."

At this the three men looked at him, as also the two women. His appearance no more suggested that he was a seaman than the appearance of Mr. Harberry suggested that he was what the village of Riprock believed him to be. "I should not have taken you for a sailor," said the blacksmith.

"I am not a sailor," said the other; "I am a soldier; a sea-soldier--in fact, a marine."

"I should say, sir," remarked the school-master, in a manner intended rather to draw out information than to give it, "that the position of a soldier on a s.h.i.+p possessed advantages over that of a soldier on land.

The former is not required to make long marches, nor to carry heavy baggage. He remains at rest, in fact, while traversing great distances.